Fine-scale knowledge of how anthropogenic effects may alter habitat selection by wolves (Canis lupus) is important to inform conservation management, especially where wolf populations are expanding into more populated areas or where human activity and development are increasingly encroaching on formerly pristine environments.
Although understanding of food habits of wolves in human-modified landscapes is critical to inform conservation and conflict management, no such studies have ever been conducted in the southern Apennines, Italy, where wolves long coexisted with humans. By means of scat analysis (n = 1743) and log-linear modelling, we investigated diet composition in five wolf packs in the relatively simple prey system of the Pollino National Park (PNP), southern Italy (1999−2003).
Hybridization, the interbreeding of individuals from genetically distinct populations, has been
considered until recently a relatively rare event across animal species. However, it is with the
development of molecular techniques that hybrids have been increasingly detected, suggesting
hybridization may be a more widespread phenomenon than originally thought. Hybrids are not
necessarily less fit and, under given circumstances, they may also bear more successful adaptive traits
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